there's boston, massachusetts. there's the san francisco bay area. there is seattle, up in washington state. there's san diego. there's tampa, florida in the st. petersburg area. there's baltimore, maryland. there's the virginia beach area, that metro area including norfolk. there is jacksonville, florida. and, of course, there is new orleans. so pop quiz. what do all of these large american cities have in common? you can cheat by looking at this map. what do all of these large american population centers have in common? the answer is that all of these major american cities are right on the edge of america. right on the coastal edge, up next to the sea. now, you could also add even some more major cities to this list if you wanted to. places like philadelphia or washington, d.c. or houston or providence, rhode island. those are all sort of coastal cities, too, in the sense that they are near the coast and they're on waterways. just for the sake of argument, let's not even include those. let's just be narrowly focused here, talking narrowly about big